Managing change

The one thing we can all count on in both life and in business is CHANGE. As a business owner it is your responsibility to recognize the need for change, determine the path to take and communicate the vision to your staff. You will have to lead them through the change because as you know, change can be scary.

No matter if people are happy about the change or not, generally they will have one of two reactions. They will either embrace the change and move along with it or they will reject it and struggle against it. There are varying degrees of acceptance and rejection but for the most part people respond in one of these two ways.

For those who resist change, they can only change their attitude and get on board with it through the proper leadership and guidance. Still, in some cases, they won’t. As a business owner that may scare you but losing someone who doesn’t support the team vision is not always a bad thing. That said, our job as managers of people is to give our employees every opportunity to succeed, even through change. So, how do we do that? When we realize employees are not moving with the change we have to sit down with them and have a conversation. You must first make sure they understand the reason for and the benefits of the change. They may not like it but they need to understand that the change is happening and as part of their performance expectation they must get on board with the new way of doing business.

Once you feel they understand the vision going forward continue to monitor their performance closely and keep the lines of communication open. However, if the unwanted behaviors continue you may have to make it clear to them how their failing to embrace changes is impacting the business and their co-workers. Help them see where their behaviors are impeding their career advancement as well as the company’s success. It’s important that you make sure they understand your confidence in their ability to make improvements in this area and that they clearly understand how their successful improvement will result in positive outcomes.

Helping companies successfully manage change is something we have a lot of experience with at Stuart Selbst Consulting, LLC. As your company grows and changes and you experience difficulties managing the changes, contact us for help navigating your company and your employees forward.